Pachinko Season 2 Review: Apple TV+'s Epic, Intimate Family Drama Is Richer Than Ever

Probably the most significant thing about the first season of the show is that it was so ambitiously large in its theologically minded scope. The season took place in eight episodes of which both the story was set in different time periods; in a small island off Busan in 1915 and in the busy city of Tokyo in 1989. Who like the original work that the show was based upon, Season 1 was both the coming of age of the Jeong family, and the story of one Korean family’s struggle in Japan in the twentieth century. No part of that goes away in the second season of Pachinko, although the time is now strictly defined; the season opens with both the final days of World War II and 1989. The difference between the two only serves to deepen the meaning of the changes that took place in those years, for Japan and for the Koreans who are living there, but part of them never really belongs to it. 
 
Picking up a bit after where the first season left off, the premiere finds the young Sunja (played by Minha Kim in the earlier time frame and Yuh-Jung Youn in the 1989 scenes) struggling to find ways to survive in Osaka’s Koreatown as shortages cut into her ability to prepare the kimchi that she’s used to keep a roof over her family’s head during the war and the imprisonment of her husband. Koh Hansu (Lee Minho), the father of her elder son Noa (played by child actor Woo Min Ki, and later by Tae Ju Kang in the later teenage episodes), hasn’t withdrawn from giving helping hand, yet Sunja is very reluctant to accept that offer. At least until the hour grows too dark and she can’t afford to reject their requests. 
 
At the same time, at the end of the ‘80s, Sunja’s grandson Solomon (Jin Ha) tries his best to escape one type of crisis or another by climbing a corporate ladder. At the close of the prior season a mistake made in the spirit of kindness sees him right out of professional baseball, he then tries to reestablish himself, soon learning that in order to play the game he may have to sell his soul in the process. And then another and another–It is a debt accumulating on me a precious life, an asset that has to be repaid day by day with interest. And as Sunja’s other son Mozasu (Soji Arai) gets into some business difficulties of his own while trying to grow his chain of pachinko parlors, Sunja begins a steady courtship with a Japanese man (Jun Kunimura, who was also in Sunny). 
 
As the series’ two timelines narrow down, what is won is proximity, or the ability to get close. Adulthood origins are far easier to relate between who the characters were and who they shall transform into. That is possible because more of their stories start resembling each other and interlink. We can also observe, for example, when Mozasu’s pachinko obsession starts. But it has just as much to do with the work of the cast and the attention showrunner Soo Hugh and the series’ creative team pay to constructing Moments that echo and speak back to each other. 
 
For instance, one of the episodes oscillates between the freewheeling, first/repeat trip to a Mexican restaurant with Sunja smiling at efficient service and potent margaritas, and sunja plying noodles, in Osaka, in a bombed city while struggling in the kitchen. Even though the role is performed by different women who are decades apart in age they are clearly the same character. It is one of the cases where not only the acting, scripts, direction and editing are good but complement each other to bring out the best of Pachinko. (While the ensemble of the cast is as strong as it was before, with Sungkyu Kim as a navel employee who is supposed to watch over the family of Sunja and develop feelings for Sunja’s sister-in-law, Kyunghee [Eunchae Jung], both Youn and the aforementioned Kim easily shine brightest in each of those periods. ) 
 
Still as meticulously well-built as this series has stayed, its characters’ journeys get worse this time around. Just like the first season, Season 2 stays true to Lee’s story’s general outline while adding details and going in some directions at variance with the source material. Several episodes, including one of the show’s most striking ones, the portrayal of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the horrors it was quadratic for Korean residents don’t reference the book at all. Hansu is not Tony Soprano (mostly) but his story and Lee Minho’s portrayal of Hansu show real care for Sunja and his son and easy-going criminal nature without omitting the cruelty of the yakuza gangster’s life. 
 
Equally and more unreservedly, the season depicts Solomon the romantic most unexpectedly when he re-encounters his former co-worker Naomi (Anna Sawai) Sub on also reveals a side that is utterly unbearably ruthless than in the first season. When Solomon loses his temper at a grocery store baker who does not even try to conceal his bigotry towards Koreans when speaking to Sunja, it’s like an anger that was attained over the course of their whole life and the lifetime of their parents and potentially, grandparents. It’s the kind of scene that wouldn’t have been there were it not for the care the series has taken, and the time we get to spend with these people. Hugh has managed to transplant a complicated novel to television without being superficial, which provides Lee’s story with a television structure along with climactic scenes at the end of each episode. And, if this season is any indication, it’s the sort of show that only becomes more layered, layered with depth each new season. 
 
One final note: While Pachinko has now switched up both its opening visuals and its theme song, it’s still really the best opening credit sequence of any of the current series.